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You aren’t alone.

I just finished reading my last post, “Organic Inspection is Done!!” and the last paragraph had Nolan and I both giggling and shaking our heads:

“This year’s tour was very enjoyable since our inspector was so enthusiastic, he even said our crops are the best he’s seen this year so far! We are pretty pleased with them too, the rain was timed perfectly with our seeding this year and some of our rotation decisions are working out great! Everything is a beautiful deep green, which means there’s lots of nitrogen in the soil. Things are also maturing early, which means a nice early harvest!”

It is now the second week of November, and harvest is still nowhere near complete. Like so many farmers in Western Canada this year, we have had a wet, snowy, frustrating autumn. Anything that we have managed to combine so far has had to be run through the grain dryer before going into storage, and we have only had a handful of days where the weather conditions were good and we weren’t dealing with breakdowns.

Going into this, I knew that farming would be a tough career at times. I prepared myself for that. However, when I was looking out on our field of wheat (beautiful wheat, that we were so proud of) covered in 3 inches of wet snow . . . I have no words to describe that feeling.

The ground has been so wet at the farm that it’s been nearly three weeks since we’ve been able to do any significant amount of field work. Even discing hasn’t been possible most days, it’s just too muddy. We’ve been busying ourselves with drying grain and maintenance and marketing, ready to jump back on the combines the moment conditions are better.

We are hopeful yet, the past several days we’ve had a lovely chinook blowing through, melting snow and drying things out a little. If it keeps blowing like this, or else gets really cold without snow, then we still have a chance at getting the crops off.

Sometimes when I talk about weather now, I feel like a particularly finicky customer at a restaurant: “I’ll take a week of sun and warm winds for an appetizer, followed by a large helping of very cold, hard frost and breezy evenings, perfect for freezing the muddy fields and finishing combining. Please HOLD THE SNOW!”

Talk about picky! If I don’t get exactly what I ordered, we still have options for harvest. We are researching winter combining, and if worst comes to worst, we still may be able to combine in the spring. If we are unable to finish discing because of the mud and snow, then we can work those fields in the spring and plant some later crops next year with a shorter growing season (probably barley, and perhaps hemp – I’m researching that possibility this week). Some of these solutions aren’t the most ideal, but it helps a lot to talk about our options. I worry less.

This post has been a long time coming. I have been putting it off and wondering what to say, because I so want to keep a positive dialogue going when I talk about farming. I still want to smile when I talk about my career, and I want to communicate to people how beautiful I think a life in agriculture can be. This season though, I am disappointed that I have found it hard to find that silver lining.

I thought about only writing about the positive things in this post, but decided that just wouldn’t be real or helpful to anyone. When I think about what has brought comfort to me lately, the biggest thing has been remembering that we’re not alone.

When Mother Nature threatens your pay cheques for the entire year, it somehow helps to know that you’re not the only person she’s picking on!

The morale of our fellow farmers in the Peace Country is low, too. With only 50-60% of crops harvested in the area, we aren’t the only ones feeling frustrated. I do notice though, a lovely sense of camaraderie among the farmers that I talk to. We all feel for each other and know that each of us is doing our very best.

Thus, this post is my part in supporting other farmers who may be struggling this year. Especially new farmers, like us, who don’t have a few tough harvests under their belts yet. I’m going to say what I’ve been hearing, and wanting to hear all season:

“We get it, it sucks, you’re not the only ones, and you still have options. Don’t give up!”

Here’s hoping we get what we ordered weather-wise, and that we’ll remember there is always another farmer across the table.